Currently, about 80 percent of the works published on Lulu are books, while 10 percent are electronic files, such as music and video files, that customers can download directly on the Web. The other 10 percent are a variety of DVDs, CDs and services, such as transactions between authors via the marketplace for editing, creating photos or artwork for books and the like, Young said.

Of course, Lulu's self-publishing process is not without some quirks in the system. Gary Kosman, who co-wrote a book called "Bonding While Learning: Activities to Grow Your Relationship While Preparing for Reading Success", said that using some of Lulu's online tools can be difficult to use if one is not computer-savvy.

"The Lulu.com service is easy to use, but based on our experience, the formatting requirements people need to set for PDFs and their custom covers means that people need at least a medium degree of comfort with PDF-creative and graphic design software," Kosman said.

If computer novices run into problems using Lulu's service, they can hire consultants through Lulu.com to help them set up their books for printing, Kosman said. And he said the quality service and experience he had with Lulu's self-publishing experience seems to be improving even more as the company works out the bugs.

"In the few short months I've been with Lulu.com, I have noticed a dramatic improvement in their customer support efforts and the quality of their personnel," Kosman said.

Kosman's book, co-written with Grace Chiu, helps parents and grandparents teach young children to read and write while also building their relationships with them. He said the book has had sales across four countries, and schools have even purchased copies for teachers to use.

Young recently began expanding Lulu's business by licensing content from the first two of what will be many partners, he said. Now, users who want to use photos or other images that are licensed by either Getty Images or Universal Press Syndicate can do so through the Lulu marketplace.